ainst the besiegers, whilst the sea was open, either for the
escape of Maximian, or for the succor of Maxentius, if the latter should
choose to disguise his invasion of Gaul under the honorable pretence of
defending a distressed, or, as he might allege, an injured father.
Apprehensive of the fatal consequences of delay, Constantine gave orders
for an immediate assault; but the scaling-ladders were found too short
for the height of the walls, and Marseilles might have sustained as long
a siege as it formerly did against the arms of Caesar, if the garrison,
conscious either of their fault or of their danger, had not purchased
their pardon by delivering up the city and the person of Maximian. A
secret but irrevocable sentence of death was pronounced against the
usurper; he obtained only the same favor which he had indulged to
Severus, and it was published to the world, that, oppressed by the
remorse of his repeated crimes, he strangled himself with his own hands.
After he had lost the assistance, and disdained the moderate counsels of
Diocletian, the second period of his active life was a series of public
calamities and personal mortifications, which were terminated, in about
three years, by an ignominious death. He deserved his fate; but we
should find more reason to applaud the humanity of Constantine, if he
had spared an old man, the benefactor of his father, and the father of
his wife. During the whole of this melancholy transaction, it appears
that Fausta sacrificed the sentiments of nature to her conjugal duties.
[35]

[Footnote 31: See Panegyr. Vet. vi. 9. Audi doloris nostri liberam
vocem, &c. The whole passage is imagined with artful flattery, and
expressed with an easy flow of eloquence.]

[Footnote 32: Lactantius de M. P. c. 28. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. A report
was spread, that Maxentius was the son of some obscure Syrian, and had
been substituted by the wife of Maximian as her own child. See Aurelius
Victor, Anonym. Valesian, and Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3, 4.]

[Footnote 33: Ab urbe pulsum, ab Italia fugatum, ab Illyrico repudiatum,
provinciis, tuis copiis, tuo palatio recepisti. Eumen. in Panegyr Vet.
vii. 14.]

[Footnote 34: Lactantius de M. P. c. 29. Yet, after the resignation of
the purple, Constantine still continued to Maximian the pomp and honors
of the Imperial dignity; and on all public occasions gave the right hand
place to his father-in-law. Panegyr. Vet. viii. 15.]

[Footnote 35: Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. Eu